Enjoy the journey

Bob’s parting words to me after my last lesson. I’d had a solid lesson in some fairly challenging conditions. Similar winds to this lesson with the added bonus of the wind literally swinging round over 180 degrees from one circuit to the next. The difference was that this time I was able to pull off some fairly decent landings from it. Well for a start there wasn’t a single overshoot. I forced myself to commit to the landing, even from a tricky approach. I made a huge effort to get the “nose up” attitude we are looking for to banish those flat and bouncy landings to the history books. It worked, Both Bob and I are much happier with my landings now and they are consistently better as well. Hopefully the start of an upward trend.

A couple of curve balls thrown in, ATC got me to do a complete 360 pretty much on final to make way for an Medevac helicopter. I had enough presence of mind to turn away from the runway to give myself some space but I was very nervous about turning when I was configured with full flaps and at a low altitude as well as airspeed. I concentrated on keeping the turn gentle and coordinated in order to minimise the potential problems, all the time aware of this particular accident from my home country where it all went wrong for a solo student on final and interestingly enough led to the introduction of the “Student” prefix on call signs for trainee pilots in the UK. Something which I personally think is a good idea.

I also caused my own set of problems when I got distracted by a sail boat right at the edge of the Marine Exclusion Zone. It was literally touching the markers. I had visions of me impaling myself right on its mast.  I made the classic rookie mistake; I think it was even subconscious, of allowing the nose to rise and my airspeed to drop alarmingly. I eventually spotted and corrected it but it shook me up a little to see the airspeed in the low fifties!

It was a solid lesson but I still get overly frustrated with my mistakes,  I just didn't feel as "in control" as I normally do. A tight turn out of the tie down spot that I needed Bob's help with, a stupid mistake during start up all just left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied with my performance; hence Bob’s gentle reminder. This is an incredible journey and I shouldn’t necessarily be in a hurry to see it end.